As part of a Parents With Apps promotion (remember we mostly do educational/kids games) Legend of Fat Ninja is on sale today for .99 instead of 1.99. If you decide to pull it down and give it a try (and we hope you do!) please let folks know what you thought of the game!

We're very happy to announce that the Soundtrack to Legend of Fat Ninja has hit digital stores on iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, and more! So stop by your favorite store to download this fantastic soundtrack.

Next, we have the Lite version of Legend of Fat Ninja submitted into the store and hopefully due out before the Holiday shutdown. The difference between the Full and Lite versions is that the Lite version only has levels 1 and 2, will not have downloadable new characters and levels next year, and will be ad supported starting early next year (for now we're keeping it ad free) Leaderboards and achievments will be shared between the games.

We hope you're all having a great time playing Legend of Fat Ninja and would love to hear your thoughts and comments on the game!

Legend of Fat Ninja is a slingshot physics game, not in the same vein as Rovioís Angry Birds, but instead more along the style of Millipede Creativeís Bullistic Unleashed. The latter game features a literal bull in a china shop, where you use a slingshot to fire a bull into a shopping mall, then bounce him from shop to shop trying to cause as much havoc and damage as possible to unlock the subsequent levels.

In Legend of Fat Ninja you use a slingshot to fire a slightly chubby ninja into a village, then bounce him from building to building and object to object, trying to cause as much damage as possible, and also knock down rival ninjas (no blood or death shown, just a clean knock-out) and eventually make off with the secret ingredient at the end of each level.

Itís pachinko with a plot! What sets Legend of Fat Ninja apart is not only do you need to hit specific targets on the ground and in the air in order to stay airborne, but you also need to pay attention to enemy ninjas, who are sneaking around trying to make off with your supplies. You must stop them before they rob you blind! Once you hit enough enemy ninjas, the boss ninja appears and you battle him for control of the secret ingredient and the end of the level.

Legend of Fat Ninja has wonderfully bright, crisp graphics, at least when Fat Ninja himself isnít flying, spinning and diving across the screen. Everything goes by in a blur when heís flinging about the screen, which is a shame given the quality of the animation on display in this game. I found myself wishing that everything would either slow down or crisp up just a wee bit so I could enjoy the scenery more when playing.

The controls are nicely responsive, but they arenít simple directional buttons and Fat Ninja is only indirectly under your control, so actually controlling him and his trajectory takes a bit of practice. Basically you tap on the screen in the direction you wish Fat Ninja to travel. Depending on the location of your tap, heíll either go there directly (up, down, sideways) or do a fancy spin maneuver or a kick and thrust in the general direction youíve pointed. This leads to some amazing visuals that fit perfectly with the Japanese-themed battling style of this game.

As you propel Fat Ninja around a level, you need to hit things in order to refill his dash meter. He starts each level with three dashes, which means you can change direction (dash) three times only before he crashes. If you let him crash, he loses a life, so you really want to keep him in the air as long as possible! The problem is that much of Fat Ninjaís battling prowess is more luck-based than skill-based, though you can get better at controlling Fat Ninja over time, so you can mitigate the luck somewhat, or learn to use it to your advantage.

The soundtrack is nice, but repetitive, and if you dislike drums youíll want to play this game with the sound turned off. The controls for sound (music and special effects) are hidden under the pause button, which appears during game play. It would be nicer to be able to access these settings from the main screen as well.

Itís worth noting that, at present, there are no in-app purchases in Legend of Fat Ninja, no coins to earn, and nothing to unlock that you canít do with simple skill combined with luck to beat the levels.

I had serious problems playing this game on a third generation retina iPad device. The game froze when you pressed the reload button after an unsuccessful level, and you needed to kill the app and restart everything from the beginning if you wanted to play again.

There is no way to skip the introductory branding pages nor the initial explanatory scenes, which means an unnecessarily long time spent waiting for the game to start upon initial play.

The blurring of the scenery during game play is exaggerated on larger devices, which makes it harder to see what youíre doing, as well as the placement of the enemies. I found game play more difficult on a larger screen.

I quickly tired of having to restart the game from scratch after every failed level on my iPad, so I finally switched to playing this on my iPod Touch, 4th generation device. There it played smoothly and did not have any problems reloading after failed levels. I actually found this game easier to play and more enjoyable on the smaller screen, despite the enemy location bubbles being harder to spot. The motion blur was less exaggerated, so it was easier to follow what Fat Ninja was doing, and where he was headed.

It also wasnít clear that my goal for each level was to hit as many enemy ninjas as possible, in order to bring on the appearance of the enemy chef, so a bit more mention of that in the tutorial would be appreciated.

This game does not have screen auto-rotation detect enabled, so if you have a bookcase-style device case, you will be playing the game upside down or forced to awkwardly rotate your device in its bulkier case in order to play. It would be nice if the developer added a screen rotation option in the future.

Finally, the comic-style level introductions, that tell the story of Fat Ninjaís quest, are also fun to read and crisply drawn too. Personally, Iíd love to see an entire, more detailed Fat Ninja comic slowly unlocked as a bonus as you progress. I definitely want to learn more about Fat Ninjaís story!

I enjoyed this unique take on pachinko, and while some improvements in both visual and game play would make this shine, itís quite playable as is. I would recommend this game for ages 8 and up as it requires some dexterity finesse that may be a frustrating struggle for younger players, and the violence, though definitely mild and cartoonish, might be of concern to their parents. Older children, and like-minded adults, will enjoy this as a pick-up-and-play title where you can either chase a high score or complete a goal to win a level, your choice.

The soundtrack is nice, but repetitive, and if you dislike drums you’ll want to play this game with the sound turned off. The controls for sound (music and special effects) are hidden under the pause button, which appears during game play. It would be nicer to be able to access these settings from the main screen as well.

Great comment! We'll consider putting in a universal mute button on the title screen/level select.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dclose

I had serious problems playing this game on a third generation retina iPad device. The game froze when you pressed the reload button after an unsuccessful level, and you needed to kill the app and restart everything from the beginning if you wanted to play again.

That's a new one! Ok we'll look into this freeze bug, I've already forwarded it on to our developer. We'd run into this on the Android side but this is the first I'm hearing of it on iOS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dclose

There is no way to skip the introductory branding pages nor the initial explanatory scenes, which means an unnecessarily long time spent waiting for the game to start upon initial play.

I believe you can tap anywhere on the screen to skip as soon as the music begins on the intro screen. Basically when the ninja gets launched. Was this not working for you? We've also made it a little less frequent on the explanatory screens in the next version.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dclose

It also wasn’t clear that my goal for each level was to hit as many enemy ninjas as possible, in order to bring on the appearance of the enemy chef, so a bit more mention of that in the tutorial would be appreciated.

We'll take a look into a possible third page for the help/tutorial explaining the ninjas and chef mechanic a bit better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dclose

This game does not have screen auto-rotation detect enabled, so if you have a bookcase-style device case, you will be playing the game upside down or forced to awkwardly rotate your device in its bulkier case in order to play. It would be nice if the developer added a screen rotation option in the future.

This is already back into the game! We had to remove this due to a universal issue iOS 6 had at the time of the game's launch with game center when auto orientation was turned on. Version 1.2.0 was submitted to the store last week and has auto orientation turned back on.

About Us

"TouchArcade covers the latest games and apps for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. We are the largest site dedicated
to iPhone and iPod Touch gaming."

Promotional Codes

While we now accept iTunes Promotional Codes for games, we can't guarantee that your app will be reviewed or covered. Only one promotion code is required. Feel free to send promo codes to tips@toucharcade.com.

While we appreciate the promo codes, notable app pre-announcements and preview copies are also of interest to our readers. Please feel free to contact us at the same email address about these opportunities.

Note: we rarely (if ever) solicit developers directly for promo codes. If you receive such an email, please contact us.

Advertising

We have advertising opportunities available to iPhone and iPod Touch developers. If interested, please contact us at ads@toucharcade.com.

Press Contact

We welcome news releases, previews, screenshots and video links for existing or upcoming iPhone and iPod Games. We can't promise a personal reply but we do try to evaluate every title submitted. Please send press releases or general inquiries to tips@toucharcade.com.